In a message dated 12/17/2014 11:19:41 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
I have already gone through the street photo collections of the New-York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the online collection of the Museum of the City of New York, and the Library of Congress's digitized collection of the Detroit Publishing
Company's glass negatives. The NYC archive real estate photos only go back to the 1930s, as I understand it.
You are dedicated! By NYHS I assume you mean you visited, as opposed to just on line access. Very little is on line.
Ouch - 1882-1905 - tough one.
MCNY has a large percentage of its photographs digitized ... but not everything. Visit.
The 1915 subway construction photos along Seventh Avenue (NYHS and Transit Archives) are, of course, too late, if I read you correctly.
The "real estate photos" at archives from around 1940 do indeed need a visit - they are not on line. But there are other photographs on their sometimes-balky web site - search for NYC Municipal Archives. You must have done this.
There are a few prominent buildings from that time which were prominent enough to be photographed - Dime Savings and Imperial Hotel >>>annex<<< (maybe that's 32nd) . You must have seen those but this business can be all about marginal views.
I assume you have a tally of the addresses. Post it, with the bounding sidestreets, maybe it will strike a chord with someone.
Wow, nice find.